Friday’s move isn’t a pause in coal production on federal lands but only a moratorium on new leasing, administration officials said Friday. Mining on existing leases will continue during the review of the program, something Jewell said is long overdue.

Green groups and Democrats, many of whom have pushed the Obama administration to institute policies slowing fossil fuel development on federal lands, praised the move.

“The science is clear: if we want to prevent catastrophic climate change, we will have to leave the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground rather than extracting and burning these dirty fuels,” he said. “The time is right to transition rapidly from a fossil fuel economy to a clean energy economy, and that means keeping it in the ground.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member on the Natural Resources panel, seemed to embrace the GOP’s “war on coal” mantra on Friday.

“For far too long the federal coal program has been part of a war on common sense, a war on the American taxpayer’s wallet, and a war on our planet,” he said. “It is past time to fight back."